Ruth bit at the inside of her cheeks as she watched the Quaker finish clearing the grave. He took a small packet from his breast pocket, laid it near the marker, and piled some stones on top of it. Then he stood, brushed himself off, and walked away.
As soon as he was out of sight, Ruth sprang from her hiding place and ran to Anne Wharf’s grave. She tore the small cairn apart, tossing the stones aside like a digging dog, to reveal a square of brown paper, no more than three inches across. Unfolding it slowly and carefully, she found a twisted scrap of cloth, a lock of crisp, black hair, and a narrow silver band. Ruth stared at the three oddments for a long moment before replacing them in their paper, pocketing them, and rushing after the Quaker.
He was nearly to the Commons Road, but instead of
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heading back toward the harbor, he forged down an overgrown trail that was known only to locals. Ruth knew who she was following now, and where he was going.
Brimfield’s pasture overlooked blue water on three sides, with views of ’Squam River, Goose Cove, and Mill River. But the Quaker did not stop to admire the sparkling scene. With his head down, as though he were leaning into a strong wind, he made straight for a large, flat boulder, where he finally stopped.
A loud groan startled Ruth, who watched as he commenced shaking his head back and forth, faster and faster, from side to side until his hat fell from his head and another moan escaped him. He pulled his shirt open and beat at his chest with clenched fists, hand over hand, until red marks blossomed on the pale flesh.
A shudder ran through Ruth and released her from her hiding place. She sprang out and ran up behind him, taking him unaware. Grabbing his long hair with one hand, she placed the sharp edge of her chisel against his throat and said, “Murderer.”
He gasped and struggled so that he pricked himself against the blade. At that, he dropped his hands and whispered, “Heavenly Father, Thy will be done.”
“Who are you?” Ruth demanded, her voice a low growl.
“If you accuse me of murder, you must know,” said Henry Brimfield, dropping polite address and speaking to his attacker as he would to a horse. He pointed to the great, tablelike boulder. “That is where I found her, weak and bleeding.”
“You found her?” said Ruth, pulling his head back farther still. The stranger’s eyes were the color of water.
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“You must think that I killed her. They all did. They believed that I was the father of the child, too. But I swear upon my eternal soul that it was not me. I did not kill the girl, nor did I . . . nor was that child mine.”
Her lips at his ear, she said, “Liar.”
“My father was the guilty one,” Brimfield said. “I have spent my life trying to puzzle out what happened here, how it came to murder. I have rehearsed it a hundred times and it must have been that she threatened to reveal him.
“Pride was my father’s greatest sin,” he said, a brittle bitterness in his voice. “He treasured his good name above heaven itself, and if she would not swear to keep his secret, he might well have traded his soul for his reputation.”
“You were there.”
“It was my first day home from Harvard,” he said, rushing to complete his confession. “I was not yet one-and-twenty, a new physician, like my father. I hurried here, where I knew she pastured the cows. I wanted only to declare my love for her. Though now I doubt if it was love at all, or only lust.
“This is where I found her,” he said, glancing over at the boulder. “The dueling sword—my sword—thick with her blood.”
“Dead?” Ruth demanded.
“Not quite,” said Brimfield. “Doomed. She begged me to save the child and once she died, I opened the womb with the sword that killed her and delivered my father’s bastard, my half-sister. No Greek drama was ever more perverse.”
Ruth changed her grasp on Brimfield, twisting his arm behind him and putting the chisel between his shoulders.
“Why did you come back?”
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